


We Yell Like Hell to the Heavens

by electricchicken



Series: The Radio Abel Roadshow [3]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: M/M, the iPod gets its own tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electricchicken/pseuds/electricchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack spends his days trying to sort backpacks full of mislabelled and dented tins into some sort of system, and hopefully root out anything that’s going to kill half the camp via botulism. </p><p>Eugene ends up folding the laundry. </p><p>(In which a radio station is born.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Yell Like Hell to the Heavens

**Author's Note:**

> Eugene's iPod made its first appearance in the OG of Road Show stories [Time of the Season](http://thischarmingand.tumblr.com/post/25192726894/time-of-the-season-yes-this-is-totally-zombies-run), which is exclusive to Tumblr because... I don't like it very much and lack the wherewithal to edit it. All you really need to know is it exists, and Eugene has hipster music taste. This might also be a good time to mention that there is a lot more fic in this universe on my Tumblr, and not all of it will ever be posted here for reasons of formatting and/or laziness.

They have their first real blow out maybe two weeks after the doctor lets Eugene out of the hospital tent for good.

Janine, who seems to be in charge of things at Abel, gives Eugene’s crutches a bit of a side-eye, tells them to “go do something useful with the food stores,” and wanders off to install air locks or check the gun turrets at the gates or something like that. Which is how Jack ends up spending his days trying to sort backpacks full of mislabelled and dented tins into some sort of system, and hopefully root out anything that’s going to kill half the camp via botulism. 

Eugene ends up folding the laundry. 

Which could be worse, Jack thinks. It’s the sort of job that doesn’t require any standing and there’s really nowhere in particular it has to be done, so when Eugene ends up spending a lot of time in the food storage compound with him no one bats an eye. 

The laundry facilities themselves are pretty limited in the township. Priority goes to blankets and bedsheets for the hospital, anything camouflage, and underwear when at all possible. No one really remembers what clean smells like. Most days Eugene’s got a few hours of folding to do at most, then Jack makes him try to guess what might be inside the tins the runners have picked up based on size, shape and number of ridges. 

It’s all really… strange, actually. Jack doesn’t miss staying up all night to watch for zombs when they’ve run out of useful ground cover, or sleeping in his damp, plant-stained sleeping bag, or days and days stuck outside in the rain. But being back in civilization — well, civilization of a sort — there’s less need to focus. No use for months of hyper-awareness he hadn’t realized he’d been honing so sharp. 

It goes down like this: 

Jack’s going through Runner 10’s latest haul of food. It’s a good batch this time. Lots of mystery cans, but non-perishable condiments too. Hot sauce, ketchup, mustard — all much more vital when your diet is based mainly on tinned meats and mushy peas. 

Someone on the Abel laundry team’s actually approved a load of socks for washing, for once, and Eugene’s hunched over on a camp chair, pairing them off more or less correctly and tossing them into a second bin for storage.

He’s nearly at the bottom of the supply bag when his hand closes around a plastic bottle with a familiar green cap. 

“Oh my God, McShell’s found [sriracha](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha),” and maybe fist-pumping the bottle in the air is a bit of an overreaction, but seriously, it’s been weeks of peas at this point. “Used to put this stuff on everything in the old days. What d’you think, Eugene, fancy a little hot cock with dinner?”

The eyebrow waggle he throws Eugene’s way is prize worthy, but wasted. Eugene’s got his face scrunched up in concentration, poking at something on the ground with his crutch. A single sock’s escaped the bin, landed just out of his reach from the chair. If the look on his face is anything to go by, Jack’s already missed several minutes of fishing for it.

“Here, let me get that,” he’s halfway crouched to pick it up when the end of Eugene’s crutch finally lands on top of it and scoots it back towards him.

“I’ve got it,” Eugene snaps. And there’s something in his voice when he says it, something Jack doesn’t like in the least.

“Sorry, I just thought—”

“Just thought you’d help out the cripple, right?” Eugene won’t meet his eyes, but he’s glaring daggers at that sock. “No big deal for someone who’s got more than 1.5 legs left.”

“Hey,” Jack tries. “Is everything all right? Do you need me to—”

“Back. Off,” it comes out through gritted teeth and makes something in Jack’s stomach knot up hard. “I just, I’m going to get some air.”

He knows better, but it’s habit at this point for him to step forward, offer a hand up. And it shouldn’t surprise him when Eugene smacks it away, lurches to his feet on his own and turns away, all hunched shoulders and slow, clumsy steps. 

“Are you actually incapable of taking a hint?” 

He’s heard Eugene mad before, of course he has. They’ve been on the road together too long for it to have been flowers and unicorns and sunshine the whole time. But mad Eugene on the road was always icy and closed off and just a bit too mean. Not like this. Not shouting and snarly — though, the mean bit is still accurate, apparently. 

“Find someone else to babysit,” he throws back over his shoulder before he lets the door slam shut behind him, leaving the sock on the floor and Jack frozen, still clutching the sriracha bottle to his chest.

—-

Alice, when she eventually stops in to pick up the laundry bins, is not as sympathetic as Jack had hoped for. 

“He lost a leg,” she says, snatching up the sock that Jack hadn’t had the heart to pick up after all. “If it were me, I think I’d spend every day, all day screaming at anyone who came near. It had to come out sooner or later, and it’s not like you two spend enough time apart for anyone else to get caught in the crossfire.”

“Did you talk to him?” he asks, not sure he actually wants her answer. There are a few crates of tinned soup stacked in one corner of the storage room, and he slumps down atop them, curling his arms around his stomach and hunching forward.

“Yeah, and he’s mad as hell and just about nearly as embarrassed,” she stacks the bins one on top of each other and picks them up like they’re nothing (though, given they’re full of socks Jack supposes that’s a district possibility here). “Give him a breather, and it’ll be fine.

“Besides,” she adds, smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “You two aren’t allowed to break up. You’d throw half the camp into a depression.”

He tries to smile back, but it feels like a weak effort. “Yeah?”

“The Major’s added it to the community rule book, I think. Section 217, sub-set A-4: no breakups of cute couples without a two-thirds majority vote by referendum.”

The smile’s still not his best, but at least the knots in his stomach loosen slightly.

—-

The problem is, Jack can let Eugene stew in whatever part of the camp he’s gone off to all day. He can sit with Sam and Alice at meals and watch the two of them pretend they’re not flirting over the tinned pears. He can spend most of the evening criss-crossing the camp like he’s trying to get a better sense of where everything is and not just stalling for time.

But, at the end of it all, they share a tent and the Major would probably frown upon him breaking curfew just to give Eugene more time alone.

He does wait until the last possible second before the night bell sounds, however, before ducking under the flap and heading inside. 

It’s mostly dark in the tents, light only coming from the guard posts nearby and a few dim bulbs strung up to lead to the lavatories and the armoury (Able Township’s priorities are fascinating, and a little frightening, Jack thinks). Just enough light to see a dark shape already lying on one of the cots, probably staring at the ceiling. 

The other cot’s been shoved a few feet away, sitting sort of crooked against the side of the tent. 

Jack doesn’t know why he’s surprised again. 

Well, that’s a lie. He’s spent most of the day hoping he’d get back to the tent and they’d curl up next to each other like usual and Eugene would apologize. Or talk to him, anyway. That they’d work something out.

The cot creaks when he sits down, and he thinks he can see Eugene turn his head to look at him. 

“My mum always said people aren’t supposed to go to bed angry at each other,” Jack says, voice a little too loud in the small space, wishing he could make out an expression through the dark.

No response.

“Personally, I think given the circumstances these days the advice is more, never go to bed after one of you has been bitten by the living dead and is about to turn into a flesh-eating monster. But the other thing stands, too.” 

Nothing.

“And,” Jack sucks in a breath and tries to ignore the way his voice is getting a bit shaky, “if you want me to stay over here that’s fine, I get it. Or, I don’t, but I can respect it. I just need you to say something to me or I’m going to sit here freaking out all night and—”

There’s a rustle of movement on the other cot, and then a flash of light, illuminating Eugene’s face as he pulls his headphones away and sits up. 

Jack had no idea the iPod survived the trip. Someone must have found it in the packs and handed it back.

“Did you say something?” Eugene asks, eyes focused on the music player’s screen. He’s still got that hunched look from earlier, but he’s talking, at least.

He should repeat himself, probably. Or find some more direct way to talk about the fight. Instead, he says, “Didn’t know you still had that thing.”

“It’s nearly dead now. Think I might’ve drained the battery today,” Eugene lets out this watery little chuckle, and sets the player face down on the cot, so Jack can’t see more than his outline again. “Felt a bit like a teenager, going around with my headphones in, listening to every half-angry song I could find on here.” 

“The Decemberists have a lot of angry sea shanties, then?” 

“Enough,” says Eugene, and Jack thinks he can hear a hint of a smile in his voice. “Just needed to get out of my own head for a bit. Not a lot of distractions in good old Abel Township, you know?”

Yeah, that Jack absolutely gets.

They sit there for a while, silence stretching out to fill the tent, until he works up the courage to ask, “can I come over there?”

“Sure you want to? I might bite,” and it’s not actually an apology. Not in the least. But the way he says it, all hesitant — well, even Jack can read between the lines when he has to.

Eugene shuffles back on the cot a bit to make room for him, and it might be pushing his luck to reach out and feel for his face in the darkness, but he’s on a roll now. May as well keep going while he’s a little ways ahead.

They manage to get pretty well tangled on the cot before Eugene pulls his mouth back from Jack’s, presses their foreheads together and mutters, “I’m really sorry I moved your bed right about now.” 

“You want to talk about that?” It’s probably a question he should’ve asked back before he had Eugene’s shirt pushed halfway off, but better late than never.

“I don’t, but,” he feels Eugene shrug more than he sees it. “I’m useless here, you know.”

“That’s not—” he starts, but Eugene’s hand over his mouth shuts him up.

“It is. I can’t run, can’t lift anything without falling over. If there’s ever an outbreak or an attack, I’m dead weight,” he takes his hand off Jack’s mouth, uses it to push the hair back from his eyes instead. “And that’s my thing to deal with. But I need — I just, I can’t take it coming from you.”

“I don’t think you’re useless.”

“You do a pretty shit job of showing otherwise,” Eugene says. Not angry, just frank. “I know I need your help with, well, pretty much everything right now. But if you could stop assuming I can’t do anything on my own, it would go a long way.”

“Oh,” Jack says. Then, because he’s apparently an idiot, he blurts, “Alice is right about everything, isn’t she?”

“Usually,” Eugene says. “Now that we’ve talked, I’m going to kiss you again. Alright?”

“Let me get the other half of the bed first.”

He nearly kicks the iPod onto the floor trying to get up, and as the little screen lights up Eugene’s half-fond, half-exasperated eye roll, Jack has the beginnings of an idea.

—-

The comms shacks are quiet for the most part during meal times, and Jack’s pretty sure no one sees him slip into the operating room just as the ration handouts are finishing up at midday. If anyone does, they don’t tell Sam anyway, because he looks shocked as hell when he comes back to find Jack sitting in his chair.

“Sam, I need your help.”

“You are really not supposed to be in here,” Sam says, after he picks himself up from where he’s staggered back against the door in surprise. “Seriously, don’t do that. I could’ve taken your head off if I had weapons in here.”

Jack glances around the office. Bunch of nearly unmovable machinery, papers, maps, a few pens, comics posters on the walls and a jar of Marmite balanced precariously on top of a stack of folders and flash drives. “Yeah, that’s a real risk I took there.”

“I said _if_ ,” Sam grumbles, shooing him out of the chair. “What do you need?”

“I want you to teach me how all this works,” he backs himself up against the door. Grey survivors always seem more eager to help out when you’ve got the exits blocked, he’s noticed. Normally, he’d feel bad about putting the screws to Sam, but he’s not sure how else to get this done.

“You want to be an operator?” he doesn’t sound surprised, even though Jack hasn’t noticed many people at camp clamouring to sit in a little tin hut 17 hours a day staring at bad infra-red. “Did you talk to the Major about it?”

“Not quite yet,” Jack says, and if Sam takes that as a sign he’s planning to, well, it’s only half a lie. “Thought I’d wow her by knowing the ropes first. I used to work the PA system at my old job, but I’m guessing this is a bit more complex.”

“Bit more than push a button and go, yeah,” Sam says with a chuckle. 

“Thus, I come to the experts.” 

“Well,” Sam draws it out, mouth twisting up as though he might actually refuse. “I’ve got a runner waiting, but it’s simple stuff today. Just a quick info swap with Skoobs Settlement. Shouldn’t be too much trouble, and I could probably explain most of what I’m doing to you as we go.”

“Brilliant,” and he means it, too. “Sam, you’re a hero.”

“Nah,” but he’s grinning at him as he settles on his headset, and Jack can see the tips of his ears are turning pink. “Runner 2, you ready? Raise the gates.”

—-

“A dedicated emergency frequency,” Jack says to Janine’s back. He’d thought after a few months on the road he was pretty fit, but damn this woman moves fast. “We should have one for the region. I know it’s not all happy families between us and New Canton at the moment, but what if we need to get word out to Red or Skoobs, or one of those teeny little camps living out of the shopping centres?”

“Rofflenet. Runners. A burst on one of the dedicated, encrypted frequencies we’ve set up with friendlies,” Janine rattles the list off without looking back, then stops so abruptly Jack nearly collides with her. “Hold my toolkit, that light bulb’s looking loose.”

“And that’s great for those friendlies,” Jack starts, then stops as the tool kit thumps into his arms and Janine starts shimmying her way up the post to the emergency lights. “Uh, are you sure that’s safe?”

“Screwdriver,” she snaps, ignoring him. “Not that one, the middle one. With the star end.”

She puts it between her teeth, and keeps climbing. Jack might be a bit in love, even if she is the most frightening person he’s met in ages.

“I was saying,” he calls up the post, as she starts unscrewing the metal cage that covers the lights. “Sure, the friendlies have a dedicated link, but what if something takes out their official comms? Or what if we know a swarm of zombs is headed for one of those outposts, but we haven’t set up comm links because they’re all of twenty people?”

“So?”

“So, we put out the word on a non-encrypted frequency, and give them tips to shore up their defences. Keep them safe where they are. Keep them from having to come here,” he feels like this conversation should be happening somewhere more private. Somewhere he doesn’t have to shout just to get his point across. “That’s the issue with New Canton, isn’t it? Took in too many people, got too big? If we give the little camps support, we keep them away from us.”

Up high, the cage slams back in place, and Janine practically slides back down the pole, screwdriver in one hand this time. She gives him a hard stare, then drops the tool back in her box.

“And you should be the one to run it?”

“I had some training a while back.” At the end of every lunch for the last two weeks, but no one but Sam needs to know about that. “If you can walk me through setup I can test it and get the word out.”

Another narrow-eyed look and then, to Jack’s honest surprise, a quick, sharp nod. “I’ll think about it. Come see me tomorrow.”

By God, he might actually pull this off.

—-

Their portion of the comms hut is even worse than Sam’s, which Jack hadn’t thought possible. And, in the rush of the last few days, maybe should have given the decor a bit more consideration. Right now it’s two chairs squeezed in behind a wall of tech, what looks like the leakiest possible patch of an already mediocre roof, and not so much as a poster to brighten things up.

He should have a talk with Sam about that. Granted, he’s not that interested in Aquaman, but anything would be better than nothing.

Yes, definitely all things he should have thought of before placing his hands over Eugene’s eyes a few minutes ago and saying, “got something to show you.”

“Can I look yet?” 

“Yeah, um, it’s not going to be quite as impressive as you’re expecting. But, give it time?” he pulls his hands away, and they both stare through the doorway at their cobbled-together transmission unit.

“Aw,” says Eugene. “You’ve brought me to some sort of murder shack for serial killers. That’s nice.”

“Shut it,” Jack says, smacking him on the arm. “I’ve come up with an exciting new career option for us — and no, before you start, it in no way involves dismembering anyone. Do you have your iPod with you?”

“My what? No,” Eugene turns to stare at him, a glimmer of something in his eyes. Yeah, Jack thinks, maybe he’s starting to get it. “It’s back at the tent.”

“Right, then. You take a seat, I’ll be right back, and in the meantime,” deep breaths, time to make it official. “In the meantime, you need to figure out what we’re calling Abel Township’s new radio station.”

He’s jogging away when Eugene’s voice stops him.

“Jack, you’re serious?”

He glances back over his shoulder, but Eugene’s not looking at him. Too busy staring inside their room, face lighting up slow enough that Jack can track the curl of his smile. 

God, he really loves that look.

“Like you said, not a lot of distractions at Abel Township,” he calls back over his shoulder, picking up the pace towards the tents again. “I think it’s time we make some.”

—-  
 **Bonus Track**

There’s a red light blinking where Sam’s never seen it before. Incoming transmission on an unencrypted line. Jack and Eugene’s thing must be coming along faster than he expected.

He flicks over, just in time for a burst of static, an awkward, sort of sheepish chuckle and someone muttering, “dignity of the office, you.”

“Welcome listeners,” says Eugene in a bright, phony voice.

“All none of you,” Jack adds.

“—to Radio Abel’s first transmission. Bringing you music and, uh, Jack, what else are we bringing people?”

“ _That’s_ your name idea? Radio Abel?”

“It’s to the point.”

“That’s the only thing it is.”

“Maybe we should play a song,” Eugene says, “sort this out away from the listeners?”

“What listeners?”

“The ones who are never going to tune in if we don’t play any songs.”

On the other end of the transmission, Sam hears some sort of scuffling noise then a muffled, “oh, put that one on.”

“That is a terrible, terrible way to welcome a new and important media voice into the world. Love it.”

[A few bars of music](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvKoPmY9IAs) trickle through the headset. Sam laughs to himself, shakes his head, and grabs for the mic. 

“Jody, your way’s looking clear for now. I’m going to put something through to you,” he cradles his chin in one hand, closes his eyes for second, just to listen. “Not sure what it is yet, but you might find it interesting.”


End file.
